07.03.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell at 5:01 am by Roy Schestowitz
I
t is difficult to forget the “cheeky tricks” and “dirty tricks” that Novell pulled against Red Hat in its own (Red Hat’s) recent event. It’s evident that Microsoft and Novell fight against Red Hat together, but they are very smug about it. Watch this new publicity stunt and mind the banner/screenshot.
Microsoft ‘endorses’ Linux?
Come on, Novell, I can see touting SAP’s seal of approval on SUSE Linux, but Microsoft? I found this banner on Novell’s page today (while looking for a logo for an earlier post), and I laughed as I read, “A quick and easy way to certify…” and then this…
Watch the image. █
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07.02.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, Windows, SLES/SLED, Servers, Patents, Interoperability, Virtualization, FOSS, Interview at 2:13 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Last week we explained what Microsoft had done with Hyper-V. It’s using such products to promote the Microsoft-taxed SLES at the expense of companies that refuse to pay for mythical software patents. Here is Microsoft’s attempt to sneak out of it when questioned about this.
As for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, it allows customers to consolidate applications running Novell SLES 10. As for Red Hat, Microsoft and Red Hat both realize the importance of virtualization and interoperability needs of our joint customers, and we are actively discussing how to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
It’s important to emphasise that Microsoft put a patent barrier inside Hyper-V, probably in order to prevent interoperability with Free software. █
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06.27.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, Servers, SUN, Virtualization, Xen at 3:13 pm by Roy Schestowitz
“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
H
yper-V, Microsoft’s newly-announced hypervisor, is prominent in the press right now despite its market irrelevance and lack of presence. Think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, just as the quote at the top suggests (Yankee Group is already at it, accompanied by more lies). But Hyper-V not good for anyone. Microsoft intends to limit choice, not to offer any (contrary to claims that it’s good for VMWare to have more competition). The only company set to gain from it is Microsoft (plus its very small group of partners).
It is no secret anymore that Novell and Microsoft are self-serving virtualisation partners. Novell could not care any less if it helps Microsoft shut the door in the face of the rest of GNU/Linux; au contraire — it works to its advantage.
We were going to write about PlateSpin tomorrow (in a positive tone of course). It is currently boasting a new product that it has just released under Novell’s wing. One thing stood out for being suspicious though.
PlateSpin updates server workload migration tools
[…]
A key feature is the ability to move a workload from a physical server into a virtual machine or vice versa, with support for virtual machines running under Microsoft Virtual Server, Virtual Iron, VMware or Citrix XenServer.
For the uninitiated, what we always see where Microsoft gets involved is limited or no support for GNU/Linux. Only Microsoft-taxed distributions receive attention, so the impact on PlateSpin will be interesting. We wrote about it before and here is another fine new example where SLES gets inserted among the very narrow range of choices, as if it’s a surrogate of Microsoft Windows:
At that time, Microsoft said the list of tested and qualified guest operating systems include Windows Server 2003 SP2, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
That’s it? Just Novell and Microsoft? Sun Microsystems sure seems to be complaining already.
3. Hyper-V only addresses Windows-based servers despite the fact that most datacenters are incredibly heterogeneous and require support for more than just Windows workloads. Aren’t you underestimating the complexity and diversity of your customers’ datacenters?
4. How do you see Hyper-V aiding in the reduction of energy consumption when it can only consolidate Windows-based servers?
It’s not too hard to get the overall picture. Microsoft is being anti-competitive again. It only offers support (compatibility) for product from which it extracts revenue; the rest it just ignores. █
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06.23.08
Posted in Red Hat, Law, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Patents, Europe, America, FOSS at 8:21 am by Roy Schestowitz
Since the very beginning of this affair. we have been slightly concerned about Red Hat’s appointment of a new CEO. Fortunately, Jim Whitehurst understands the issues at play. He also addressed the key question before.
The news is not about his disdain for Microsoft’s intimidation, but it’s actually in the fact that he never communicated these matters, unlike his predecessor, Matthew Szulik. Here is a portion from a new interview.
Does the patent settlement you announced recently [with FireStar Software] that is consistent with the GPL mean that you are in a better position to be able to settle your patent dispute with Microsoft?
[Jim Whitehurst:] The problem is that we don’t know what the Microsoft [patent threat] is. They have said in the past that 235 patents [are infringed by Linux] and we have yet to see what any of them are. Conceptually, it should be possible but, again, we don’t know what we are talking about there.
When was the last time you spoke to Microsoft regarding patents?
[Jim Whitehurst:] I am sure, as a company, we have an ongoing dialogue on a lot of things. I have had dialogue at a senior level, but it has been more on how we can work better on interoperability for customers; I haven’t had any direct conversations around the patent issue.
Elimination of software patents seems ever more crucial. For the time being, Digital Majority makes an urgent call for American people to oppose software patents in Europe (via so-called ‘harmonisation’ back door).
Tell The United States Patent and Trademark Office that software and business method patents should not be part of the EU-US patent treaty.
Fight against software patents. They are an insult to science and competition [1, 2]. █
“People are trying to cause a rift in the open source community. I see people using words like “zealots” for disagreeing with proprietary technologies. This is the same mentality the neo-cons use when you criticize American government. You are “unpatriotic,” “extremist” or “terrorist sympathizer.” It’s a disgusting form of ad hominem argument.”
–Source
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Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Virtualization, Xen at 6:12 am by Roy Schestowitz
The Rat Pack: Anti-Red Pact and Anti-Hat Pack
Var Guy warned about this in advance and we finally saw it materialising in Boston just a few days ago. Novell is truly resorting to what one reporter has called “dirty tricks” against Red Hat. Although we believed we had seen the worst of it, there’s this new observation also.
Having pointed out the cheeky banner that Novell hung outside rival Red Hat’s annual conference in Boston, I later found out from Red Hat’s chief executive Jim Whitehurst that Novell also put a “big sticker” on the floor outside too but Red Hat managed to get it removed.
Well surprise, surprise, I got an email today from Novell with a nice image of the sticker in question and what a sticker – it must be twenty feet across – I wouldn’t like to have on the crew that had to lay that let alone remove it.
You can watch the photo in this short article. At the same time, Microsoft attacks Red Hat from another direction. Having ’stolen’ XenSource, using its partner Citrix, Microsoft is moving on to a “Get the Facts” not only against Red Hat servers (they now have a ‘comparison’ page) but also against virtualisation with Red Hat.
Microsoft Produces New Perspective Over Windows vs. Linux
Microsoft has never been that shy about trashing open source operating systems in order to boost its own proprietary platforms, and the latest perspective over the two products is merely a new chapter in the Windows vs. Linux saga. A Microsoft authored comparison involving Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Hypervisor is available for download via the Redmond company’s Windows Server Compare.
As many observers know by now, Novell and Microsoft are creating an exclusive ‘virtualisation club’ where a warped and twisted ‘Linux’ is the only invited guest (taxed by Microsoft, too). It’s important to put an end to the Microsoft/Novell relationship or at least disengage from doing business with both. █
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06.22.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, Intellectual Property, GPL, Oracle, IBM at 1:03 pm by Roy Schestowitz
In Part 1, we wrote rather cautiously about Oracle’s relationship with Red Hat and then reiterated known facts about IBM. This is where it gets trickier because we now introduce what’s not sufficiently substantiated but nonetheless worthy of consideration. It seems to have received a nod from Novell.
Some Background Information
Who is Ron Hovsepian? According to Wikipedia, “Hovsepian held management and executive positions at IBM Corporation over a 17 year period, including worldwide general manager of IBM’s distribution industries, managing global hardware and software development, sales, marketing and services.”
Our sources are close enough to Ron Hovsepian himself and it’s interesting to note that he was appointed and made CEO between the time that IBM helped Novell acquire SUSE (Hovsepian Joined Novell in June 2003 and in November 2003 Novell bought SuSE) and just shortly before negotiations with Microsoft began, namely around May or June 2006. Hovsepian was appointed CEO in June 2006 when he replaced Jack Messman. Pay careful attention to the proximity of dates.
Linux as Power, Not Freedom
According to the Linux Foundation’s annual conference (the Summit), which last took place in Austin, representatives might insist that they only care for Linux solutions, not desktops. Novell says that too: “solutions”. In other words, the key element which is Free software, with the GNU GPL at its very core, is viewed as a nuisance, as though its kind of stands in their way. Proprietary or Free, to the big vendors it’s all about power, not freedom.
Richard Stallman’s philosophy and the accompanying licence are seen as discomforting to those who want to produce “solutions”, so ways of working around the licences seems desirable. While every company is acting selfishly for sure, some remember to respect their supplier (volunteer programmers) and recall what they came from. Mutual honour is definitely a prerequisite to the success of this relationship.
Over at IBM, with Irving’s departure (he retired quite recently, having put the company’s focus on GNU/Linux and Free software), one can only hope that the leadership is still truly dedicated to the cause. Bob Sutor makes some solid migrations to GNU/Linux, but he still uses non-Free platforms sometimes. Being a decision-maker, he has impact.
Prelude to Assumption/Hypothesis
We finally turn our attention to the theory of a large-scale collusion — a gentle one nonetheless. At the heart of it we picture a battle played by executives and lawyers behind some people’s backs. Our source never really took the allegations of the OpenDocument Foundation working for Microsoft in disguise too seriously, but they did hurt the ODF cause a lot. Before that, Gary Edwards was leading a small but influent band of OpenOffice.org forkers and disruptors.
According to our source, a lot of what’s at play is related to Novell. Factors and forces that include Novell, Microsoft and ODF are part of it, and surely enough IBM feels bitter with Novell’s ambivalent yet receptive approach to OOXML. The same goes for Sun. We know this for a fact. Miguel’s OOXML affinity, for instance, is a big pain in the neck to them.
Novell informed several different ‘camps’ of FOSS developers about the agreement with Microsoft before it got signed. Mono and Samba developers, for instance, knew about it in advance and had time to voice their opinion. Jeremy Allison told us that he regretted not protesting more loudly.
Ron Hovsepian and other top executives tried to explain to leaders of several projects (primarily those impacted by the Microsoft deal) what that agreement all about. It was essential in order for friction to be reduced before the bomb is finally dropped. After all, Novell needed to make sure that, at least in the future, if possible, these projects will could continue working with Novell. It’s collaboration under Microsoft’s claws.
People who are associated with the FSF knew about this deal in advance as well (at least 2 of them). The legality questions — specially w.r.t. GPLv2 — was explained, but the wound was well understood by Hovsepian et al who disregarded it. There was too much at stake and the GPL wasn’t a priority high enough.
The Theory
Some believe that he idea of the Novell/Microsoft agreement came from IBM and Oracle. They went to Novell with the following plan: Microsoft would be very much interested in two things with Novell: polluting/diluting the Linux brand and message (Microsoft could also have a dent in the Linux market). This is always overlooked,
“Microsoft is very much interested in Novell’s IP. Remember SCO?”Microsoft is very much interested in Novell’s IP. Remember SCO? Remember e-directory? Remember Netware, Groupwise, etc? Well, Novell has a very nice IP portfolio that many companies of similar yield cannot enjoy. In short, that agreement was a boon for Microsoft but we all know this.
From the other side, the whole plan was a poker game that would tie down the hands of Microsoft with Novell and in the end neutralising Microsoft’s IP while IBM and Oracle could attack.
“Perhaps”, says the source, “and I would tend to buy into that option, Novell was quickly overthrown by Microsoft’s dance of the dead. I don’t know.
“The ultimate plan was to strangle Microsoft’s IP and that it was all the idea of IBM and Oracle.”
Take this part with a grain of salt and decide for yourself if it makes sense to you. It sure seems to have struck a nerve with Novell’s CEO.
A Reader’s Take
One reader who was intrigued with the first part about possible secrets behind the Microsoft-Novell deal wrote:
“It sounds as if the whole point of that deal was the patent protection element that Microsoft supposedly slipped in at the last minute and to which Novell didn’t really agree and sloughs off as unimportant. I’ll have to wait and see.
“The comment I really wanted to make here is that I am not really surprised at all at IBM’s involvement here. First, in the days prior to Microsoft’s monopoly, IBM had a similar monopoly in the market for mainframe hardware. They employed similar tactics to Microsoft to fend off competition that wanted to make compatible hardware. See Amdahl. It was IBM who coined the tactic of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Part of the reason Gates took such a hard-core stance in the anti-trust case was that he saw what happened to IBM after they complied with the anti-trust decision that went against them.
“I suppose it’s a bit unreasonable to think that a leopard could completely change its spots. While IBM has undeniably done some important things to promote Linux, one should never forget that their motivation isn’t out of any love for free software. They use Linux as a competitive tool against Microsoft. There is no love lost between these two companies. Consider what happened with OS/2, which was originally a joint project between IBM and Microsoft. Even more recently, consider the time when Microsoft announced their Palladium project, which is embodied in Vista. IBM came out and tried to assuage the fears of the Linux camp that they would be locked out by announcing support for “Trusted Computing.” In the current scenario, obviously without knowing any of the details, I suppose I would nonetheless be safe to say that the Novell-Microsoft deal is something that Novell gets credit for initiating - “coopetition.” That used to have such a nice ring to it, but not anymore.” █
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Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Ron Hovsepian, Mono, Patents, Patent Covenant, Samsung at 6:07 am by Roy Schestowitz
Unsurprisingly, the anti-Red Hat deal [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] which Microsoft and Novell had signed did not leave Red Hat too happy. Nevertheless, the new CEO has not said much about Novell. In the following new article he finally explains the difference between Novell’s approach and Red Hat’s approach (as Charles recently did).
Tell me more about the settlement.
What was impactful and important about it was we not only protected ourselves and our customers, we protected all upstream and downstream use of the technology. A lot of times, not to pick on anyone in particular, but Novell in the Microsoft settlement didn’t protect all their upstream and downstream users. We’re not just protecting ourselves, we’re protecting everyone who uses that technology.
Are patent disputes a common problem for you?
It’s always one of the issues, how do you handle patents with open source, because of the necessity in open source to protect up and downstream. It’s a complex set of legal issues. We generally don’t run into it that much because open source is really good at working around patent issues. It doesn’t take up a lot of my time.
Red Hat seems to be tuned in to developers’ needs a lot more than Novell is, the latter being a mixed-source company [1, 2, 3, 4] with a non-Free (non-libre) mindset. As such, this self-serving attitude is only to be expected in the future. Remember:
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO (2008)
If the following comparison is anything to go by, Novell is to Free software what Nokia is to open source.
SUSE used to be a solid and stalwart promotor of free and open source software. The commercial boxsets had the best and most extensive collection of manuals and tutorials in the field, showing it understood the need of new W2L migrators. For Novell it was good thinking to buy SUSE and use it to salvage it’s declining Netware business. Corporations are driven by other sentiments than the communities of developers, as the recent remarks of Nokia’s VP show. Corporations will enter into strategic partnerships to protect or expand their market share and thus the partnership between Microsoft and Novell does make sense. But I am also raising my eyebrows at the attempts spearheaded by Novell to port Microsoft-based technology (.Net and Silverlight) to Linux (Mono and Moonlight).
Speaking of Mono, Nokia’s gadgets and Microsoft sellouts, never forget Samsung + Microsoft, which we last mentioned yesterday. Samsung is one of the companies that pay Microsoft for Linux in its gadegsts. It’s better to avoid it. Mono is believed to be part of this deal [1, 2, 3], but there’s insufficient evidence. █
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06.21.08
Posted in Red Hat, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, NetWare, IBM at 2:04 pm by Roy Schestowitz
SUSE’s advancement was perhaps somewhat overshadowed by the more important release of OpenSUSE 11.0 just a couple of days ago. Magnitude matters.
Nonetheless, a few reporters kept their eyes also on the commercial versions of SUSE and here is a story about adoption at a university
De Montfort University has chosen Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 as the foundation for its IT infrastructure for students and staff. The Novell system, built on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SP1 operating system, is designed to reduce storage costs, and using Novell’s Xen virtualisation technology, improve resilience and flexibility.
The university is one of the largest in the UK, with more than 20,000 students and 3,000 staff across two campuses in Leicester, and offers 400 undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
OES2 is based on Linux and here is a firm that claims to be cannibalising Netware for OES.
Read the rest of this entry »
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« Previous entries ·
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.